I did it for a few reasons, the rent is my highest ($2700/mo) so the savings were healthy.  

@Tony PryorThat seems very doable if your credit is good and your DTI ratio is healthy.

I've got a pretty healthy sum of money to start with, but I'm really scared of making a wrong mistake.

Fair market rent for my portion of the house is around $2,950/mo.I did part with $109k down payment (including closing costs), but I've been saving for quite some time so I still have some fairly healthy cash reserves, and I'm actually looking get another property within the next 6-12 months (most likely out of my expensive market though). 

So in addition to the depreciation recapture you'll also pay tax on the net gain which @Basit Siddiqi  and @Wayne Brooksdescribed very well for you.So you've got a potentially healthy tax bill. 

The housing market is currently very healthy and we have no reason to expect a housing crash even in the presence of an economic recession, so for those reasons I believe it is a great time to buy.

I have excellent credit, 10 years of strong W-2 income at my government job, a really low DTI ratio, and a healthy balance of cash reserves.  

This way you get more traffic and it creates a little healthy competition.

As far as health, I'm healthy enough and plan to seek health care in a country where it is cheap when the time comes or even getting citizenship in another country and getting health care completely free?  

Seriously though in order to scale your going to have to take risk that involves debt .you just need to keep a healthy ratio of income and debt to keep above water